Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:06:52 -0800 (PST)
From: traumarei <traumarei@yahoo.com>
Subject: Good Friends

Good Friends
by Traumarei, traumarei@yahoo.com

Disclaimer: This is a work of complete fiction, alas...


I've always been smaller than Matt. Younger, too, by about six months, but
that was only coincidence, really. But always, from when we first met in
fifth grade, he was bigger than me. And that made a difference, all though
middle school and even our freshman year. At first, we argued a lot; but by
the middle of seventh grade, we had worked out a division of labors, of
sorts. I was in charge of academic things--making sure we both got good
grades, and figuring out the new video games. Overall, though, he was the
boss. I might make suggestions, but he made the decisions. Even our parents
seemed to expect it to be that way.

As a budding jock, Matt's popularity expanded dramatically during middle
school. His friends from sports started coming over to his house. Several
of them--Chris, and Ahmed, and Eric--became special friends. Sometimes they
would do jock-things together that didn't interest me, but most of the time
we all hung out together. They were all jocks, and I wasn't, but we were
friends anyway--with Matt as our leader and central connecting hub.

Early in fifth grade, my parents made sure I had access to accurate
information about sex. It didn't seem like that big a deal to me, but Matt
was impressed and surprised at my level of knowledge the next year. Our
human reproduction unit covered the basic biology pretty well, but was
pretty vague on other topics, or used words that college freshman would
have had trouble following. Fortunately, I had read a better description of
masturbation than the one in our textbook, so I was able to describe the
mechanics of it for Matt after the day we talked about it in class, even
though I had never tried it myself. I was even able to tell him some of the
common slang terms for it.

A few days later, he dragged me up to my room to tell me how cool jacking
off was, then pestered me until I pulled out my own penis and tried it
under his direction. My first orgasm was just the way the books had
described, except that the feeling was much more powerful and affected me a
lot more than I had expected. Immediately jacking off became a daily habit
for me and--so he informed me--for Matt as well. We never jerked off
together alone again, but several times in seventh and eighth grades, the
guys would start talking about sex and someone would suggest we have a
cicle jerk. I always enjoyed these occasions, and didn't worry about them
too much, since the books I had read said it was pretty normal for guys our
age to masturbate together sometimes. I loved to watch the pearly streams
of semen erupting from their cocks over their hands and streaming onto the
towels we laid out to catch the spill.

Overall, middle school was pretty good for me. Spending time together with
Matt and his friends, I got to be more confident and outgoing. By eighth
grade, I had established my niche. I played clarinet in the school band. I
was on the newspaper staff, and in the chess club. I got pretty good
grades, and I had a good set of friends.

Then ninth grade hit, and high school, and I was suddenly once again a
young-looking, weak nerd. What confidence I had gained over the previous
years, I almost immediately lost. I'd been the best clarinetest in eighth
grade, but wasn't even in the top half of my section in my new band. The
high school chess club had died several years before. I volunteered to work
on the school newspaper, but all they did was make me a reporter's
assistance and use me for clerical work. Nothing I really wanted to do.

For the most part, Matt and my other friends didn't really realize what was
going on with me. They had all made the JV football team, and it kept them
busy after school--not just with practice, but with friends and social
opportunities related to the people they met on the team. They just assumed
that I was busy with similar events in my own sphere. We would get together
from time to time, but they were awfully busy, and I couldn't follow a lot
of what they were talking about when we did find time to meet up. None of
them had the same classes or lunch schedule that I did, so there was never
really any opportunity to make connections in school. Soon I started
avoiding and making excuses so that I wouldn't feel like a fifth wheel when
they were around.

The other thing that made ninth grade really bad was the sudden, unwelcome
realization of the direction my developing sexual feelings were taking. It
started one day late in the fall when I heard Matt talking about a date
he'd been on. It wasn't anything serious, but of course the other guys all
teased him about whether blow jobs and fucking, and him feeling her
up. Listening to my friends, I found myself vaguely disgusted at the mental
picture that flashed in front of my mind of Matt with his hands on a girl's
genitals, based on the pictures I had seen in the books I'd read on
puberty.

I would have dismissed this as just another evidence of my own late
development--something I'd done on previous occasions, when similar
thoughts had crossed my mind. But just then I happened to look at Ahmed,
who was stretching while he laughed at something Chris had said. And the
flash of his smiling teeth and four inches of exposed stomach shot straight
to my groin, and I couldn't stop myself from picturing him naked, with an
erection. The answering twitch in my cock told me I was interested. Really
interested. Oh, damn, I thought.

Being the geek I was, of course I didn't just leave it at that. Instead, I
researched. Several hours spent searching the Internet gave me my
answer. After looking at a few of the standard are-you-gay sites for teens,
I decided to get a bit more daring and looked up some gay porn sites. Wow!
I had never gotten so hard so fast in my life, at least not since those
circle jerks. Nope, no question at all.

So was I the only gay guy in the group? Mentally, I catalogued my friends'
reactions over the years, only to arrive at the sad but inescapable
conclusion that all of them were overwhelmingly heterosexual. Sure, they
had been up to some fun in middle school. But thinking over what they said,
and where their looks were being drawn these days, it was clear that girls
Really Turned Them On. No way could they have faked it. Maybe with someone
else who didn't know them as well, but not with me. So now I had another
reason for drawing away from them. I didn't think they'd hate me for being
gay. It was just one more point of difference.

That was around Christmas. The guys and I spent some time together during
the break, and it was fun. Then school started, and the end of the semester
and beginning of the next one, and I picked up my intention of withdrawing
from Matt and my other friends and going it alone. It was really hard, but
I thought it was the only thing I could do..

Other things weren't going well either. I had gotten into several advanced
classes, but it turned out I wasn't as well prepared for them as my advisor
and parents had thought. Working on the newspaper was still boring, so I
dropped that, partly so I could use the extra time for studying. I was
starting to hate the clarinet. And suddenly, for whatever random reasons
things like that happen, I was being bullied again by some of the other
ninth graders, for the first time since I had become friends with Matt back
in fifth grade.

By the end of the year, things had gone into a steep nosedive. I struggled
to get B's and C's in my classes last quarter, where before I had been a
mostly A student. A lot of mornings I had a hard time convincing myself to
get out of bed. I stopped seeing my friends entirely, giving them the
excuse that I was busy and needed time for studying, which was true enough
though it wasn't my real reason. Some days the words I said to my parents
on the way out the door in the morning and over the dinner table where all
I said to anyone.

I got through my finals, then crashed for the next two days. By this time,
my parents had started to figure out that something was wrong. They hadn't
realized it earlier, partly because I'd done such a good job of hiding it
from everyone, and partly because they were used to me spending a lot of
time with my friends. They didn't realize I had pretty much dropped out of
that social group. Most of all, I think they found it hard to believe that
such a good middle school career could crash so spectacularly, with no
apparent reason.

And then the final report card of the year arrived, mailed a week after
school was over. To say that it took them by surprise would be an
understatement.

They talked. We talked. I assured them I was not on drugs. They supervised
an inspection of my room to make sure--not, they said, because they doubted
me, but because they would feel really bad if it turned out they were wrong
and didn't catch it. Everything was clean as expected, though we all had an
embarrassing moment when I opened up the drawer near my bed where I kept my
baby oil and the small towel I used as a cumrag. I didn't even mind the
whole drug-interrogation thing that much. Didn't really have enough energy
to care, actually. Afterwards, they took me out for a large pizza and ice
cream sundae. Eventually, they got around to asking why I'd stopped
spending as much time with Matt and my other friends. I said we'd kind of
drifted apart, and I blamed our different interests and the different
social circles we were now running in.

I did my best to explain away my problems as just a tough quarter, with
harder classes than expected and the general problems of trying to find my
way socially in a new setting. I assured them that things would be better
the next year. But I couldn't hide the fact that I was depressed, and that
really didn't get better.

I didn't say anything about being gay.

July came, and with it a trip out to Oregon to see our extended family. I
always liked visiting theme. My parents thought a vacation might be just
the thing to help put the hard year behind me. And it was nice, and my
depression did lift some. I did my best to smile and laugh and be
positive. What I didn't realize at the time was just how poor an imitation
it was of my usual level of energy and social interaction.

We came back to find a registration packet for my sophomore year. My
advisor had included some recommendations to help with getting me back on
track gradewise. And so we starting looking over possible schedules. And as
we were talking, I mentioned that I'd really just as soon drop band, since
I wasn't enjoying the clarinet that much anyway.

I guess it was a sign of just how out of it I was that I didn't anticipate
my parents' reaction. Both of them got really upset. I said I couldn't see
what the big deal was; people changed what they liked, and I had stopped
liking band. I didn't see at the time that what bothered them was that I
didn't seem enthusiastic about anything anymore. Then they started talking
about me getting counseling, and I blew my top. I said that if they thought
I was crazy, they should just say so and I'd stop bothering them with
it. Then I went upstairs to my room, slammed the door, and went to sleep.

The next day, Matt came over.

################################################

It was about 10:30. I was awoken by a soft knock on my bedroom door, but
ignored it. Then the door opened and closed, and Matt was sitting on the
chair in front of me.

I was surprised, in a kind of dull, vague sort of way. I'd seen the guys a
couple of times earlier in the summer. Summers were crazy in general, with
families going in all different directions for vacations, and there hadn't
honestly been much chance to get together before we took off for
Oregon. Not that I'd been in much of a mood to seek them out. Mostly I'd
put them off with lies about the other things I was doing. Of course, most
of what I was doing was staying in my room and sleeping or reading or
listening to depressing rock music. I hadn't seen or talked to them at all
since we got back.

Matt didn't say anything. After a minute, I asked, "Hey, what's going on?"

He just stared at me for a minute. Then, in a voice so tightly controlled
that at first I didn't realize just how angry he was, he quietly asked,
"What the fuck is going on here? Do you have any idea how I felt when your
mom called me last night, saying she knew that you and me gone our separate
ways over the past year, but asking if I'd be willing to talk to her anyway
so she could get some better idea about why you've been so different this
summer?"

Oh, shit. I'd never counted on my parents calling Matt to compare the lies
I'd told them with the lies I'd told him.

He wasn't done. "Real nice to tell me we aren't friends anymore,
asshole. Of course, it sounds like there's a lot you didn't tell me about
this last year. I didn't know you stopped working on the newspaper. I
didn't know you were having a hard time in your classes. Fuck, I didn't
even know you had come back from your fucking trip to Oregon." He paused,
and to my astonishment I thought I saw unshed tears in his eyes. "Jesus,
Jerry, your life's been going down the toilet, and I didn't even know. What
kind of a shit best friend am I anyway?"

I was ashamed. It had been years since I'd seen Matt anywhere close to
crying. I wanted to crawl under my bed and hide.

"Well, one thing's for sure." He shook his head. "No more of this
I-can-handle-this-on-my-own shit. Rest of the summer, you're with us."

And that was that. Over the next week, I spent a sizeable chunk of time
each day with the guys, or whichever of them were available. Each of them
made a point of giving me a hug and telling me they wanted us to stay
friends. It was nice being with them, kind of, though it made me feel worse
in other ways. Why were they letting themselves get dragged down by me?
They were great guys. They deserved better. Mostly, though, I just couldn't
rouse the energy to care very much about anything. It was as if there was a
kind of curtain between me and the world.

It was the next Thursday. We were having a pool party over at
Chris's--something I usually liked a whole lot. It was still nice, but I
just couldn't get into it that much. I got in the water early--Matt made
sure of that--but mostly I smiled and watched the other guys horsing
around. And, of course, watching their wet, athletic bodies. I sure wasn't
complaining about the eye candy. Still, I was the first to get out of the
water to go home for dinner. As I was leaving, I heard Matt's voice saying,
"Guys, this isn't working. We need to try something different."

Early the next evening, I was called downstairs from my room. I was
surprised to see all the guys there, along with my folks. It looked like
they had just come from a late football practice. When I came in the room,
Matt pulled me over to stand in front of him, then reached around and
pulled me into what he used to call a turtle hug: my back against his
front, one arm over my shoulder, the other around my stomach. I was
startled. This was something Matt used to do when we were a lot younger,
when I was feeling upset or he was feeling especially protective. It had
been years since he had done it.

"Mr. and Mrs. Strohm." Matt held on as he started speaking. "It's clear
that Jerry's not a happy puppy. Just spending time kicking back with his
friends isn't gonna get him back to where he needs to be." He drew in his
breath. "The guys and I have some ideas, some things we think can
help. Jerry can't make good decisions for himself right now. We want to do
some things with him that he may not like and probably wouldn't agree to,
some things he may think are a little scary. But we think this is what
needs to happen. Is that gonna be okay with you?"

Dad nodded carefully, as if he understood more than Matt was saying. "If
you think this will help." He paused. "Can you tell us anything about what
you're planning?"

"No, sir. I think this needs to stay private between Jerry and us."

He nodded again, as if this was only what he had expected. "What do you
need from us?" I noticed that no one was asking what I thought about
this. It was clear that I wasn't going to be given a choice. I started
shaking. Matt noticed, and squeezed a bit.

"Eric's folks are going to be gone this weekend. Jerry will need to be
there one in the afternoon on Sunday. We'll bring him back Monday morning."

"Anything he needs to take?"

"A change of clothes. Toothbrush. His favorite shampoo. We'll take care of
the rest."

"We'll make sure he's there." My dad looked around at all of them. "We
trust you guys."

All the guys came up and gave me a hug. Matt didn't let go from his turtle
hug the whole time. Then the others left. He saw me up to my room, put a
hand on my shoulder, and said, "It'll be okay. You'll see." Then he left.

################################################

Several of the guys came over about midmorning the next day, and from then
until late that evening, I was with them pretty much constantly, at my
house or one of theirs, down at the local hamburger joint, or over at the
school's outdoor basketball court, where they actually got me to play for a
while. It was actually more relaxed than things had been the last several
days. The guys seemed to be in a good mood, and they joked with me almost
as if things were back to normal. No one would give me any details about
what was going to happen the next day, but several people grinned and said
I was going to like it. It was reassuring, at least a little bit.

That night in bed, I tried to get nervous about what the next day would
bring, but couldn't really muster the energy for it. Finally, I decided
that what was going to happen was going to happen, and there wasn't much I
could do about it, and went to sleep.

I didn't do much the next morning. Ate breakfast, watched cartoons, tried
to read a book. My attention was nil. About noon, my mom fed me lunch, then
Dad drove me over to Eric's. He came up to the door with me--no chance to
take off, if I'd been planning to do that--and waited while I rang the
doorbell.

The door opened. Eric was there, with Matt and Chris. Ahmed, I assumed was
probably inside, or would be coming shortly.

"Jerry. Come on in. Thanks for bringing him, Mr. Strohm." My dad took the
hint and left. They closed the door. I stared at them.

"Come on. We'll be camping out in the downstairs." That's where Eric's room
was, along with a TV room, exercise equipment, a bathroom, and a
mini-kitchen that mostly wasn't used. Eric looked me over. "Looking
good. Nice pants and shirt. Too bad you won't be keeping them on for very
long." He smirked, and my stomach fell as I followed him down the hall and
the stairs. I wasn't surprised, though. I guess I had been expecting
something like this, at some level.

We went into Eric's room. Ahmed was already there, wearing--oh God. He was
wearing only his boxers, which he pulled down and off as I watched. He
grinned at me. He was hard. I gulped and glanced around. No one else looked
surprised. Then Matt closed the door, and everyone was looking at me.

"Jerry." It was Matt, of course. "Jerry, stay calm." I realized that I had
been starting to hyperventilate. "Jerry, some things are gonna happen
today, whether you want them to or not. We don't want to force you. Will
you cooperate?" I looked at my best friend, and found only love in his
eyes. Slowly I nodded. "Ye-yeah." My voice was shaking. So was I.

Matt gestured. Chris and Eric came over, and started taking off my
clothes. Meekly at their direction, I held out my arms and stepped out of
my shoes, socks, and pants. They left me with my underwear on, led me over
to the bed, and had me sit down.

Chris, Eric, and Matt then took off their own shirts, shoes, and
socks. Eric sat behind me, holding me in a turtle-hug. It felt weird and
really cool feeling his skin against my back. Chris and Ahmed sat on either
side of my, their sides touching mine. Matt crouched in front of me and
looked me in the eyes.

"This isn't going to be just about sex." As he spoke, Eric started rubbing
his stomach with hand and stroking a nipple with the other. I could feel
myself going hard. The only reason I hadn't done so earlier, I was sure,
was because I was so nervous and uncertain about what was going to happen.

"We know you like guys." At those words, Ahmed moved his hand and started
stroking the inside of my thigh. "If we didn't already suspect, your
reaction to naked studmuffin here would have been a dead giveaway.

"None of us are gay." He held his gaze steady. "But you are. And you're
having a bad time now." Chris started stroking my arm. It was really
nice. I started to wonder if I had somehow gotten drunk without
noticing. "Maybe you think we're not gonna be friends anymore, because
we're jocks and you're a geek. Maybe you think we won't want you to hang
around because you're gay and we're not. Maybe you're in love with us, just
a little bit." At that I gasped, and I could feel tears starting to collect
in my eyes.

Eric moved his hands down to my sides and started pulling my shorts
down. Obediently I lifted up my butt so he could slide them down my
thighs. Chris and Ahmed leaned forward and pulled my underwear the rest of
the way off. I was completely naked.

"None of those things matter, because you're our friend." Matt and Chris
started taking off the rest of their clothes, while Eric still held me from
behind. "And if we have to pull 25 orgasms out of your cock in the next 24
hours to make sure you know that, then that's what we're gonna do." And
with that, Eric pulled away from behind me and I heard the sound of his
zipper going down, while Matt gently pushed me backwards. In a minute, I
was lying on the bed, my legs dangling over the side, looking up at my four
best friends, all of whom were naked and hard as a rock. I was too. And
they reached out their hands and started to touch me.

From the beginning, it was clear that nothing was going to be under my
control that day. Instead, my body belonged to them. And they made their
ownership clear, stroking and sucking and licking everywhere.

During the first few minutes, Chris and Eric lifted my legs while Ahmed
started stroking my butt. Suddenly it occurred to me that this was really
happening, that I was naked, with my body at the mercy of my best
friends. They could do anything they wanted to me.

Meanwhile, hands were stroking my chest. Someone got out vegetable oil and
started rubbing it onto me and onto my cock, and then OH GOD, there was a
MOUTH down there, on me, and I was helplessly cumming into--yeah, it was
Chris, while Eric and Ahmed held my arms and legs and Matt stroked my head,
holding me down so I couldn't do anything but cum and cum while Chris's
mouth kept on working me, and it was sore but still they didn't let go.

Then Chris took his mouth off of me and they shifted around, and the hands
were stroking me again, and a new and quicker, more demanding mouth--it was
Matt, Oh God--and a tongue roughly thrusting against the underside of my
cock, and I started to get hard again. And then someone was rubbing an oily
finger around my ass, and I started to panic but I was still being held
tight, and closer and closer and then it slipped in, Matt's finger, and it
rubbed against something inside and OH GOD I was cumming again, cumming
into Matt's mouth while he snickered at me, his mouth full.

After that they let me recuperate for a few minutes while they sat around,
idly pumping their own cocks as they talked. Listening, I found out that
while none of them had had sex with a girl yet, Matt and Ahmed and Eric had
all had blow jobs during the past year. Chris was jealous, and Eric said he
could have one off him after they were done with me. Chris threw a pillow
at him. It was all good natured joking. Amazingly, in the middle of all the
weird stuff we were doing, they were still just guys, just my friends. I
don't think I had ever loved someone so much.

And suddenly tears were streaming down my face for no reason I could name,
and I started shaking again except harder this time, and then I was
sobbing, great gut-wrenching spasms as all the pain of the past year hit
me, and I felt again that despairing conviction that I was utterly alone
and completely worthless. And they were all holding me, pressed against my
skin, as I shook and wept and clung to them. And slowly I calmed down, and
the tears stopped, and I felt utterly drained, but better than I had felt
for a long, long time.

"Hey Jerry."

"Yeah?"

"We really do love you, you know."

And then I started crying again, but they were happy tears, and quieter
this time. And the others started kissing me and rubbing me, slowly, all
over my body. I twas ticklish, but they held onto me, and it felt
great. And slowly it turned into an orgy again, and by the end every one of
them had shot onto my skin, and I had shot again, this time from having my
cock teased and stroked and gently tickled so long that I came just from
Ahmed blowing a stream of air onto my cockhead.

After that we cleaned up and took showers, and ate an early dinner of
cooked frozen pizza, and settled down and watched videos, all of us still
naked. Slowly as we were watching, it started to turn into a makeout
session, with all of them taking turns with me in pairs, and the others
making out a bit among themselves as they waited, though what they did with
each other was clearly all physical and just in fun. And I wound up cumming
a fourth time, with balls that had started to ache, as I humped Eric's
back, our skin made slick with the baby oil, and I pumped on his cock while
everyone else around us slowly jacked off to orgasm.

And we stayed up late, and I wound up telling them what my year had really
been like, my voice soft and hesitant. We sat sipping wine from two bottles
Matt had brought, and I could tell it was affecting me because I was saying
things I hadn't been able to talk about all that year, all about the
disappointments and bullying and loneliness, and thinking that I needed to
draw away from them because they weren't gay and because I wasn't a
jock. We'd left the lights off when it got dark outside, so everything was
all silvery moonlight, flashes and reflections. I surprised myself at one
point by saying, "I don't know if I would have survived another year," and
started to cry again, and I started to figure out that maybe I had gotten a
lot closer to the edge than I knew.

We slept that night all in the same bed. Before we went to sleep, hands
moved slowly on me again, one final, gentle orgasm stroked out of me by
everyone else all together, and then a towel wiped me off. Then each of
them kissed me and I drifted off to sleep.

I got home the next morning at 10:30. We had slept in, then had a lazy
breakfast, followed by another communal cum session and a shower, then got
dressed for the first time since I arrived the day before. I started to get
into my new clothes, then thought, what the hell, and put on the same
clothes I had worn the day before. Then we all split. Ahmed took off toward
his house. Matt and Chris walked me partway back, then took off for their
own houses. They all had football practice later that day.

Mom was there in the front room. I guessed she was working at home that
day.

"Well, like at you!" she said. She had a huge smile on your face. "Who's
this handsome, happy young man?"

"Delivery boy with a package, ma'am. You looking for a little personal
service?" I snickered, and she slapped the side of my head, a grin on her
face, then drew me to her. I gave her a long hug, and was surprised to
realize that I was now taller than she was. It had been months since I had
hugged her like that.

"It's good to see you looking so good again," she said softly, with a small
catch in her voice. She pulled back, and started teasing me again. "And
just why do this shirt and pants look so familiar, young man? Didn't we
tell you to pack a change of clothes?"

"It's not like they had much chance to get dirty while I was there."
Oops. I could feel my face turning crimson as I realized what I had
said. My mom turned red too, though she didn't look terribly surprised.

"I don't think I'd better ask anymore questions about that." She was still
blushing, but smiled and drew me in for another hug. "You have wonderful
friends."

"Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do."

################################################

The rest of the summer passed surprisingly quickly. My parents were amazed
at how much my outlook had improved. The guys walked on water as far as
they were concerned.

Everyday, at least one of them showed up to spend time with
me. Unfortunately, despite how much better things were doing, I soon
realized that I needed their checkups. Even with everyone's help, I still
kept getting tired and discouraged and feeling like I was worthless as a
human being. Eventually, everyone--with my reluctant agreement--decided I
needed to be evaluated for depression.

I thought I was okay when we were talking about it beforehand, but once I
actually got into the evaluation and had to tell the doctor about how I had
been feeling, I got hysterical and started to hyperventilate. I wound up
sitting on Ahmed's lap in a turtle hug, since he was the one who had come
with me and my mom to the appointment that day. I don't know what the
doctor thought, but we finally got through it, and I was put onto an
antidepressant and set up with counseling once a week for the next six
months. Eventually, we figured out that I've been suffering from long-term
depression for a long time, pretty much all my life. It's just that being
with friends from fifth grade on made it a lot better, until I hit high
school and that support structure was taken away.

Things are better now. The new school year started, and it's better this
year--at least partly because sophomores, I've found, aren't as obsessed
with making other people miserable. Too much of their own junk going
on. I've learned to ease back a little bit, and not try so hard. I'm still
in the band, and I'm back on the newspaper staff, though I've given up on
restarting the chess club.

The guys have been encouraging me to make new friends, doing the sorts of
things I like doing, and I'm starting to do that. I realized I had come a
long way when I found myself deliberately trying to be friendly with a few
of the other loners and geeks. Some of them act suspicious, but I've
actually started to pick up a few potential friends. It's the first time
I've gone out on my own to make friends since Matt in fifth grade. Chris
suggested once that maybe I could go out to the GSA in our school, but that
sounds like suicide to me, and the other guys don't think it's a great idea
either.

The guys still keep an eye out for me. If a day passes that I don't hear
from one of them, I can be sure I'll hear from them the next day. I feel
kind of ridiculous, but I've learned to stop arguing about it. It's not
like I have a really good case for getting them to believe I can take care
of myself without their help. And honestly, I like being cared about,
though their protectiveness does get awful old sometimes.

And each week, on Friday or Saturday night, one of them comes over to my
house, or I come over to theirs. They've got a fucking rotation going,
which would just possibly be the most hilarious thing I've ever heard, if
it were happening to someone else. Since it's me, I find it excruciatingly
embarrassing. But the sex is really great. Nothing has ever gone beyond
what we did that first weekend--no fucking or being fucked, nothing beyond
a blow job or occasionally a little finger-fucking. Still, it's really
great.

My parents know what's going on. How could we keep it a secret? I'm not
sure they understand it, and I sure as hell am not going to talk to them
about it to try to explain. For that matter, I still haven't gotten over
being embarrassed about the comment Eric made one Saturday morning over
corn flakes about sex as a natural antidepressant. What made it worse was
that he didn't even seem to think he'd said anything to be embarrassed
about. Fucking Gryffindor. Fucking jock.

The guys still make it clear that they're in charge when we get together.
They think it's their job to pull as many orgasms out of me as humanly
possible, and then a couple more after that. I'm always exhausted and sore
in the balls, but I have a grin on my face.

Matt's right. It is about more than the sex. But the sex does help. And the
love. Even if it isn't the kind of love I want, it's good enough for now.
Especially together with the sex. Did I already mention that? They say
they'll keep it up until I have a boyfriend of my own. I'm not complaining.